Saturday Frights: The Twilight Zone – “The Howling Man” (1960)

Welcome back to all of you fans of fiendish film and TV! Those howls you hear from the creatures of the night need be no cause for alarm, you are safe down here with us in the Retroist vault! Us? Yeah, that’s the one and only Doug McCoy behind the concession stand and you can see the esteemed Daniel XIII manning the projector. We also have good friend to the Retroist site Claymation Werewolf as head usher and Phishbo3s in the ticket booth! We had a phone call that the Retroist himself was bringing over a special episode of the X-Files…but we think that Flukeman got hold of him. Yikes!

So until that episode gets into our hands we will make do with another classic episode of the Twilight Zone series this week entitled “The Howling Man”. This is the 5th episode of Season Two, originally airing on Novemeber 4th, 1960 on the CBS television network. The episode tells the tale of a weary traveler named David Ellington seeking shelter from a storm at a strange hermitage. Within its walls he finds a man kept prisoner, howling in the night in anguish. But the head of the order of monks, warns David that it is not a man that he hears begging for help but the very Devil himself!

This wonderful episode is certainly one of the classic Twilight Zones and stars H.M. Wynant (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) as David Ellington, John Carradine (Ice Pirates, Secret Of NIMH, The Monster Club) as Brother Jerome, Robin Hughes as the Howling Man (Cyrano de Bergerac, Dial M for Murder), and Friedrich von Ledebur (Moby Dick, The Buccaneer) as Brother Christophorus. It was written by Charles Beaumont who wrote 22 episodes for the original Twilight Zone including Long Live Walter Jameson, Living Doll, Dead Man’s Shoes, and Long Distance Call to name a few. Charles Beaumont had a beef with this episode as he originally had written that a cross had been placed against the door of the Howling Man’s cell. The producers felt a backlash might occur if that was filmed and instead used the “Staff of Truth” as seen in this episode.

Come join us down in the Retroist Vault as we spend a little more time in the Twilight Zone and listen for the Howling Man!

Searching through the alleys for useful knowledge in the city of Nostalgia. Huge cinema fanatic and sometimes carrier of the flame for the weirding ways of 80s gaming, toys, and television. When his wife lets him he is quite happy sitting in the corner eating buckets of beef jerky.